The Problem With Love Letters
by Oxymoronic Alliteration
Summary: There is a love letter loose in NCIS headquarters and it's wrecking havoc on all who find it. Written for the NFA Community "There it sat..." Challenge.
1. Jenny

**Disclaimer:** _NCIS_ and all of its characters are the property of CBS. I own nothing!

* * *

There it sat, lying open on her desk. It was merely by luck that Jenny had even spotted it lying on the ground. The clasp of her bracelet was broken and as she was ascending the stairs on her way to MTAC it had come undone, landing in the small corner beside the stairway. When she had gone to retrieve it she spotted it on the floor along the wall. It was a piece of lined paper that, judging by the slightly jagged edges, had been torn from a spiral notebook. It was folded into fourths, a poorly drawn picture of a flower enclosed in a heart on the front.

Jenny almost left it. After all, it wasn't hers and she sure wouldn't want another person snooping into her business. However, she realized that the paper wouldn't stay hidden forever and that its owner may not find it before someone else. There may be a name inside the letter which would allow her to return it to the proper person, and surely whomever it belonged to would prefer _her_ reading it than, say, Agent DiNozzo. Jenny quickly scooped it up and slipped it into her pocket, deciding she would look at it once she was in her office.

Now, having opened it, she found a noble, though incredibly corny, attempt at poetry inside, but no name anywhere.

_To the one I love:  
__Your hair is silky to the touch  
__Your eyes just glow so very much  
__When I'm with you I feel so grand  
__I just want to hold your hand  
__Your smile makes my heart light up  
__And my feelings I must write up  
__You're a beautiful person, inside and out  
__All my love for you I must shout  
__I'm very glad that I met you  
__And forever I will love you_

_Oh brother,_ Jenny thought as she read, _Lord Byron this guy is not_.

The note was hand-written with small hearts and flowers adorning the page.

The love letter was simply signed "From your admirer." The handwriting did not look distinctly familiar to her, but then again the agency had a plethora of employees, many who likely had similar handwriting. Not to mention the possibility that it was the letter's recipient, not its writer, who worked for NCIS.

_Then again, they may _both_ be NCIS employees_. Jenny frowned at the thought. While inter-office dating wasn't prohibited, she knew first hand that it could lead to awkward situations and strained working conditions.

The poem's description was no help. It could refer to _anyone_. It's too bad the wannabe poet didn't have a larger or more descriptive vocabulary.

_I suppose I can rule out any of our bald workers, but other than that…_

A knock at the door pulled Jenny from her thoughts. "Come in," she called.

The door opened and Cynthia peeked her head in. "Director, you're needed in MTAC."

Jenny frowned slightly. The mysterious letter would have to wait for now. "Thank you, Cynthia. Tell them I will be there shortly."

"Yes, director."

Jenny looked one last time at the letter. She couldn't leave it out on her desk, that much was clear. While Cynthia was not the snooping type, she occasionally had to get items from Jenny's office while she was away. Jenny didn't want to run the risk of having it seen by anyone, accidentally or intentionally. She could slip it back in her pocket and take it with her to MTAC, but her pockets were shallow and the last thing she needed was to have it fall out there.

Glancing around her desk, she spotted a file of reports that Agent DiNozzo was supposed to pick up that day. Jenny couldn't remember the last time Tony had ever picked up anything from her office on time. With little time to think about it, Jenny stuffed the letter between two sheets of paper within the file. With that, she grabbed her cup of coffee and left, her mind leaving the note for the time being.

Less than five minutes after Jenny had left, the door to her office reopened. "I'm surprised, Agent DiNozzo! It usually takes you a few days to take care of anything involving paperwork," Cynthia said with a smirk.

Tony grinned in response. "Well, Cynthia, paperwork isn't really my area of expertise. I'm much more a hands-on person and I think I'm of better use out in the field than at my desk." He grabbed the file with the post-it reading "Dinozzo", cradling it under his arm. "But in this case Gibbs feels this is more important."

Cynthia crossed her arms as the agent walked past her, eyeing him knowingly. "He threatened to castrate you again if you forgot to pick it up, didn't he?"


	2. Tony

There it sat, lying open atop the papers in the file. Tony had been lazily sifting through the folder when he had picked up a large stack of papers and saw it sitting there, the slightly crumbled paper sticking out like a sore thumb against the crisp, clean typed sheets of the file. He placed the stack to the side and gently picked up the paper, his eyes quickly scanning it, widening as he read each word.

His head shot up, his eyes searching the bullpen for any of his colleagues. No one. He let out a sigh of relief. Under other circumstances he would have been disappointed to _not_ have anyone there to show the love letter off to. He took great pride in his admirers and was never bashful about gloating. But this was much different. This wasn't a letter from that new cute agent working for Lowell's team or from that very attractive woman working in the evidence garage. This was a letter from Director Shepherd, a letter from the boss. It was like getting a love letter from _Gibbs_.

Tony shivered and shook his head, trying to eliminating the image of a Gibbs-style love letter. _He's not exactly the poetry type_, Tony mused. _Then again, I never took Director Shepherd for the poetry type either._

But it had to be from her, there was no other explanation. She _knew_ he was going to be picking up that file today and she wouldn't have left it there if it wasn't for him. It was very crafty of her, he had to admit, hiding it between the sheets. She wouldn't dare risk slipping it to him in public when she may be seen and giving it to him in the privacy of her own office…well, she was probably too shy. Not that Tony blamed her seeing as he was quite the ladies man. He grinned, envisioning a demure, blushing Jenny. Quite different than the NCIS Director he knew.

He looked once again through the poem. While it was hardly a masterpiece, he was delighted in how Director Shepherd—_Jenny_, he decided he could now call her—really captured his essence in poetry.

_Your hair is silky to the touch_

He ran a hand smoothly through his hair. She was right, silky to the touch!

_Your eyes just glow so very much_

Well, no argument there.

_Your smile makes my heart light up_

Catching a slight reflection of himself in his blank computer screen, Tony shot himself one of his winning smiles.

_You're a wonderful person, inside and out_

She even recognized that, in addition to being a stud, he was a kind and caring person!

_And forever I will love you_

The last line was a bit unnerving to Tony. Love? That was rushing it for him. He liked to start out with a few dates, maybe a few intimate trysts, before he got to the 'L' word. Besides, the director was…well, the director. If he were to get into any kind of non-work relationship with her…well, it would be much like those old-time secretary/business man affairs you see in films, only with _him_ as the secretary and _Jenny_ as the businessman. Tony winced. He had no intention of being _anyone's_ secretary.

"Whatcha got there?"

Tony jumped slightly. He looked up to see Tim, carrying what he assumed to be their lunch. "None of your business, Probie," he snapped, shoving the letter into a small pile of papers on his desk. "Is that lunch?"

Tim set down the bags on his own desk, grabbing his gear. "Yes, but Gibbs just called me. He wants us to meet him and Ziva out at Quantico."

Tony followed suit making a mental note to get back to the letter as soon as he returned. "I'll get the Sedan," he informed Tim. As he was walking from his desk, he spotted Jenny emerging from MTAC. He caught her eye and shot her a grin and a wave. She, in return, looked at him quizzically, but responded with a small nod of the head.

Moments later, Abby stepped off the elevator and walked toward a now empty bullpen. It was a slow day so far and Gibbs had asked her to help them out by looking through George Thurmond's phone records from the past three months while the team was out. "They should be on DiNozzo's desk," Gibbs had said.

The forensic scientist spotted a small stack of papers on Tony's desk. "Aha," she said to herself, "this should be a breeze. Hopefully when they get back they'll bring gifts in the form of blood, bullets, and caffeine." She walked back to the elevator, not even noticing a very pale Director Shepherd sprinting out of her office.


	3. Abby

There it sat, lying open on the floor. As Abby had stepped into her lab, one sheet of paper fell from between the stack and floated to the floor. She placed the stack on her table and leaned down to retrieve the fallen one. She noticed immediately that this was_ not_ part of the phone records and immediately forgot about her promised task. _What the…?_

Abby looked down at the letter, her face reddening. _Hair silky…eyes glow…hold your hand…smile makes my heart light up…beautiful person…love for you…forever…_ "Who wrote this?" she muttered.

Her first instinct was Tim. He was the only person she could think of who would write, and, in fact _had_ written, her poetry. _But this doesn't exactly sound like his poetry_, she thought. True, Tim was hardly master poet, but even _his _stuff was better than this. Tim's poetry tried to emulate poets of the past, using words such as "thee" and "o'er," and he enjoyed working his extensive vocabulary into his poems with clever rhymes. This, on the other hand, was only one step up from "Roses are red, violets are blue."

_Besides_, Abby realized, _how would Tim even know that Gibbs would ask me to go through the phone records_? She gasped suddenly, her eyes wide in realization. _Gibbs_! This had to be why he asked her to go through the phone records. He wanted to give this to her surreptitiously! _Gibbs isn't really one to write poetry and this was _definitely_ written by an amateur poet_.

Abby sunk into a nearby chair, the letter in hand. Gibbs? Sure she joked with him, perhaps flirtatiously, at times, but she did that with almost all her male co-workers. It was part of her personality.

She thought about his behavior around her, how he always refrained from smacking her head, even though she warranted it most of the time. He was always there to protect her, to shield her from any threat imaginable. He kissed her platonically (or maybe not so platonically, now that she thought about it) on the cheek on a regular basis. Still, she never dreamed that he actually felt this way about her. There wasn't a long list of things that could stun Abby, but this was definitely in the top five.

Her mind was racing with this newfound information. She didn't _dislike _Gibbs, of course, though he was hardly her usual type. He was into boats and she was into graveyards. Would they have anything in common, anything to talk about? When he talked about building boats she was so bored fell into a slight comatose, though she was sure her technology talk had the same effect on him.

_Still, he is quite attractive_, she mused with a grin. _It's that silver hair and those blue eyes. They just get me weak in the knees._

The more she thought about it, the more she kind of liked the idea of Gibbs and her. Them. _Us_, she thought, liking the ring of it. After all, why shouldn't she like the thought of a man who was always there for her and protected her, who brought her gifts—yes usually as bribes, but gifts nonetheless!—and who was as gruff (but in a sexy way) as Gibbs?

For the first time that she could remember, Abby found herself flushed, butterflies in her stomach at the thought of a man. Usually she took pride in having that effect on others, not vice versa.

"Abigail," Ducky's voice came from behind her making her jump slightly. She shoved the letter in her pocket quickly.

"What's up, Ducky?" she asked as she swirled around in her chair.

"I was wondering if you could go down to the lab and pick up a couple of bullets. Mr. Palmer is still down there doing the preliminary work on a John Doe and I've been called away for an emergency." When he saw Abby's worried expression, he explained, "Our house keeper just called to tell me that my mother locked her out of the house and is yelling something about gutting her and feeding her innards to the Corgis if she tries to break in again."

"I'd be happy to. I wouldn't want your mother to do anything she'll regret in the morning. Besides, human innards aren't good for dogs," she joked.

Ducky smiled slightly. "Thank you," he said giving her a small pat on the back as they walked to the elevator

Abby's mind went to the letter that was currently stuffed in her pocket. "Hey, Ducky, what do you think about women dating older men?"


	4. Jimmy

There it sat, lying crumpled on the floor. Jimmy probably wouldn't have realized what it was had he not seen the flower drawn on the front. He paled slightly, feeling perspiration forming on his forehead. He glanced at Abby, who was examining two bullets he had pulled from the John Doe's stomach, her back to him. She hadn't noticed the piece of paper on the floor and he wanted to make sure it stayed that way. Slyly, he stepped his foot over it and pulled it toward him, his eyes never leaving Abby.

"This one was smashed to bits," she said, spinning around to face him. Her brows furrowed. "Jimmy, why are you looking at me like that?" She squinted. "Are you sweating?"

"I…uh…" he stammered, the note under his foot feeling as though it was burning a hole through his shoe. "It's just really hot in here."

She rose an eyebrow. "It's like a freezer in here."

"Oh…I guess I've just gotten used to it…" He begged his sweat glands to cease and desist, but to no avail.

"Uh…right," Abby said unsurely. "I'm going to go back to my lab and get on this…before Gibbs gets back," she added, a sly smile on her face.

Immediately after the doors closed behind her Jimmy let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He bent down and grabbed the piece of paper. In his mind he prayed he had made a mistake, that this was something completely different. However, as he straightened up and examined it his stomach flopped.

_How did this get down here_? he wondered to himself. He had given it to Michelle when they had passed each other in the stairwell that morning. His mind raced, running through his day up until that point, figuring out when it could have possibly gotten there. Michelle had come down at about 10:00am to get an autopsy report. He was in the middle of an autopsy with Dr. Mallard so the two of them had to settle for a smile and slight nod of the head. After that Michelle hadn't returned until…

_Lunch_! Jimmy wanted to smack his head against the autopsy table, but resisted, not only because he was sure it would be painful, but also because the last thing he needed was to get this guy's bodily fluid in his hair. _That's got to be when it happened_! At around noon Dr. Mallard had gone to get a quick lunch. Michelle, showed up almost immediately after he left, as though she had a sixth sense about when Dr. Mallard left and returned. Jimmy heard the doors open behind him, but figured it was Dr. Mallard returning to retrieve something he had forgotten. Then he turned and saw her standing there.

Her eyes were bright as she looked him up and down, her lips twisted into a coy smile. Her hair was down, falling around her face. He noticed with pleasure that since her last visit two hours earlier she had unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse. She cocked her head to the side. He nodded. They met in the middle, lips crushing together, fingers entwining, clothing being strewn aside as the two melted together and toppled down to the ground. Somehow, in that moment of passion, the letter must have fallen from her blazer pocket.

Had it really remained undetected by both Dr. Mallard and himself in the time since? He and Michelle had finished up only minutes before Dr. Mallard returned. Always one to think on her feet, Michelle explained that she had come back down to pick up another copy of the previous autopsy report. "Unfortunately," she said, manage to muster up a sheepish smile, "I dropped the other one in the recycling bin."

Dr. Mallard had smiled good-naturedly and asked Jimmy to fetch another copy for her. With the doctor's back turned, the two shared a quick kiss before she slipped out. Jimmy returned to his work, suppressing a smile. Since then both he and Dr. Mallard had been hard at work. Well, until Dr. Mallard had been called away. Then Abby had come down and…

Jimmy wiped a bit of sweat from his face. It was sheer luck that neither Dr. Mallard nor Abby had seen the letter before he was able to get to it. He wasn't about to take any more chances. Jimmy folded the note neatly and slid it into his coat pocket, zipping it closed.

_Boy, it's a good thing I found that_, Jimmy thought. _Who knows what trouble it could have caused_?

* * *

_Fin_

**AN:** Thanks to all of you who have been reviewing this! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
